Mauritius Not just a pretty beach
February 28th, 2010 | Mauritius TravelBeing a multicultural country is hardly unique today, but Mauritius is an original, and it’s all there to savour. The island is only 61km long and 45km wide, much smaller than Gauteng, but it packs it in: half is covered by sugar-cane plantations, but there are quaint villages, dramatic mountains, nature reserves and waterfalls, temples, mosques and churches, and even a few museums to explore. Here are some suggestions.
1. Drive it
You can get almost anywhere in Mauritius within about an hour but, if you hire a car, a trip around the 180km circumference of the island could easily fill a day, with stops to see and do things. Drive on the left, with a maximum speed of 90km/h on highways, and usually 60 to 80km/h elsewhere.
Taxis are also a viable alternative, as the country’s roads are a bit of a confusing web to strangers, with only one real highway along the west coast through Port Louis. Set a price for the excursion before you go.
Most roads are narrow and often tree-lined, passing through sugar plantations dotted with heaps of black volcanic rock, and villages lined with old, street-fronting shops. It’s not always easy to stop and explore, but traffic is seldom heavy enough to make it dangerous.
The most scenic route is along the east coast from the beautiful fishing village of Trou d’eau Douce to the old town of Mahébourg.
The road hugs the shore most of the way, winding around bays and passing through villages in various stages of disrepair and renovation, always against the dramatic backdrop of the pinnacled mountains. As is common in Mauritius, small-scale farmers cultivate much of the available land for vegetables, and you will find the occasional ruined fort, such as at Pointe du Diable, where the French built one to defend Mahébourg in the 18th century.
2. Go to Pamplemousses
It’s officially called the Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam Botanical Gardens after the first post-independence prime minister, but most just call it the Pamplemousses Botanical Garden, after the town it’s in.
Covering 30ha, it has a huge collection of trees, 80 palm species alone among 800 plant species. Its charm is in its age, as it dates back to 1729, when it was an estate called Mon Plaisir.
Pierre Poivre bought it in 1770 and started planting the present garden, testing exotic trees in the local climate and collecting indigenous ones.
Its most famous feature is the long pond full of water lilies, including the giant Victoria amazonica, but, once you have seen that, simply wander the grid of tarred walkways that criss-cross the garden. Near the new western entrance are giant Aldabra tortoises, which once roamed the island along with dodos.
It’s open from 8.30am to 5.30pm, all week.
3. Go to market
The biggest market is to be found in the capital, Port Louis, selling a great range of fruit and vegetables, herbal remedies, and fish and meat, in different sections. If you are staying in a hotel, this is mainly for photographing, but stock up if you’re in self-catering accommodation. Either way, the best buy is vanilla pods, so fragrant you can smell them through plastic bags, and other spices. Many of the stalls are family-owned and have been passed down through generations.
It’s always great to pick up a CD of local music as well, even if you don’t know what you’re buying. It will probably be Sega music: the grandfather of the genre is Serge Lebrasse.
There is a fair amount of tourist tat as well, but bargains are to be found in tablecloths and baskets.
For more upmarket shopping, head to Curepipe.
4. Say a prayer
Mauritius has a mix of religions, with Hindu (53%) accounting for the largest portion of the population. Colourful temples, churches and mosques are scattered all over the island and are always worth a visit, although there is no organised guide to them.
There are Chinese pagodas around Port Louis, which is also home to a Dravidian-style Hindu temple, and the Jummah mosque on Royal Street in Chinatown. It was built in 1850 and is the largest, but tourists are not allowed beyond the courtyard.
The St Francis of Assisi church at Pamplemousses, built of basalt rock, is the oldest building in the country (built in 1756) but the most photographed is the white-walled, red-roofed Catholic Notre Dame Auxiliatrice at Cap Malheureux, where the British landed in 1810.
Curepipe has a large church dedicated to St Helen, and Mahébourg has a cathedral dedicated to Our Lady of the Angels.
Perhaps the most significant religious site is not a building at all but the Sacred Lake (or Ganga Talab, lake of the Ganges) at Grand Bassin in the Savanne region. Thousands of Hindus converge here every year for the Maha Shivaratri festival. The lake has a giant statue of Lord Shiva, the second-biggest in the world.
5. Commune with nature
When done with the lazing in luxury at your hotel, head for the peaked mountains which dominate the interior. There are many hiking trails, but the easiest way to enjoy the flora is to visit the Black River Gorges National Park in the south, established in 1994. Its 6574ha include all the remaining hardwood and tropical forests of the island. Visitors enter the park from Vacoas.
The Pétrin visitors’ centre has trained guides and all the maps and tourist information you will need.
Just outside the park is the strange site of Terre de Sept Couleurs, the Seven-Coloured Earth, at Chamarel, a landscape of rich blue, green, red and brown earth compacted into mounds on which no vegetation grows. The surrounding park of under 5ha has rope bridges through the forest canopy.
The nearby Chamarel Falls are the highest on the island, tumbling 100m over a curved cliff.
6. Visit the Past
The “creole” architecture of the working-class – often homes built of wood and iron – is increasingly rare, replaced by modern brick and concrete, but it is still to be found.
The grander, elegant homes of the sugar-baron aristocracy were, of course, more permanent, but many have been lost to hurricanes or neglect. In the past, almost every village had a verandahed house on a sugar estate.
In the Pamplemousses garden you can hardly avoid Le Chateau de Mon Plaisir, built in 1858 to replace an earlier home built by Bertrand-François Mahé de La Bourdonnais, the first French governor of the island.
La Bourdonnais also gave his name to an estate near Mapou, which has one of the grandest surviving chateaux, built in 1858 and complete with a driveway of banyan trees planted in 1820. But the most visited chateau is Eureka, near Moka. Built in 1830 with a bizarre 109 doors, it is now a museum (open daily) and there is even a waterfall in the garden.
7. Take in a museum
The Natural History Museum in Port Louis has the only known skeleton of a dodo, found in 1990. The National History Museum in Mahébourg has the bronze bell from the St Géran, which sank off the coast in 1744, giving rise to the national legend of the doomed lovers Paul and Virginia, but stuffy museums are not really part of a holiday package.
Rather head for the Café des Arts at Trou d’eau Douce, where an 1840s sugar mill is now an excellent restaurant-cum-art-gallery featuring the work of Yvette Maniglier, the last private student of Matisse.
The chimney towers that dot the cane fields are all that remain of most old sugar mills, but another, on the Beau Plan estate, decommissioned only 11 years ago, has been turned into L’aventure du sucre, which tells the story of sugar on the island, including the colonial trade, slavery, freed workers, and the indentured 19th-century labourers from India and China. A tour takes about 90 minutes and even kids can relate to the history, through pictures, films, video clips and comic strips.
Le Domaine les Pailles, just 5km south of Port Louis, was never a real plantation, but it’s a tolerable, modern theme park that includes 1500ha of nature reserve. There are recreated or relocated historical buildings, an ox-driven sugar mill, a rum distillery, coffee grinding and basket making using dried aloe vera plants. It also has the only working steam train left, performances of Sega music and dancing, four restaurants and a night-time casino. You can take a full-day hike in the reserve with a picnic lunch, or take a 4×4 tour or carriage ride.
Source: Times Live (http://www.timeslive.co.za/lifestyle/article326171.ece)
